Thursday, January 4, 2018

OK Team - Lets pull it into a circle, everybody take a knee. Smoke 'em if you got 'em and lissen Up . . .

Its the New Year. January is named after the Roman god Janus, from the Latin Januarius "of Janus". Janus was the Roman god of gates and doorways, and of beginnings and ends.

On the subject of Beginnings, somebody asked me for advice; he's going for Special Forces Selection & Assessment. What kind of workouts should he be doing? Well he came to the right man because over the past six months, I designed a Selection & Assessment program for an Eastern European nations' own Special Forces, then picked up a new contract that involves a selection & assessment of its own, a training program and a rather significant physical fitness standard in the Statement of Work. This is timely for me because I've been personally training over the past year for a long distance endurance event involving boots and rucksacks and LOTS of miles on the feet, so I'm in a position to give good advice in this department.

First of all, anyone interested in attending Special Forces Assessment & Selection is going to have to do LOTS of ruck marching to get their body used to carrying the weight. Please be aware that the Special Forces pace for a ruck march is four miles an hour. Thats a fifteen minute mile - practically running - with at least 55lbs on your back. The terrain around Camp Mackall is all sand (its the "Sandhills" - right? Used to be an ancient seabed) and that sand grabs your ankles and makes rucking harder there than anywhere except the desert. Nobody ruckmarches like Special Forces - it is our signature move. I suggest lots of flutterkicks, and lots of squats to build up your thigh muscles and hip flexors.

Flutterkicks are performed with your fists under your butt and chin on chest to take the strain off the lower back. I wrap a towel around my fists to get some more elevation on and so I don't crush my hands.

In training for this kind of activity, I do my squats with between 70 to 140 pounds on the bar, about five sets of sixteen reps, at least three times a week. On a weightlifting routine to prep for Selection, I recommend using lighter weights and go for more repetitions. The idea is to build up endurance kind of core strength; its weight lifting to compound your performance, not body building. Body building is actually counterproductive to athletic performance and flexibility because you're packing on weight while your heart and lungs remain the same size - weight that you'll later have to push down the trail.

To prep for Selection, you need a plan. Over the course of three months of conditioning there will be plateaus, peaks & valley. The plan is to hit a high plateau in the week(s) before Selection, then be moving toward that peak just as you start. You don't want to be at a pinnacle of fitness because that is when the body becomes fine tuned, almost a delicate state and prone to injury. The overall goal is a kind of core strength of the endurance variety that can be drawn upon so that when faced with an extreme physical challenge - like an event that takes place over several days - during the course of the event performance is there (you will feel the pain) but afterward there is not damage or injury.

Ability to bounce back and go into the next thing is crucial - because there WILL be a Next Thing. Foot movements will be between four to six to twelve miles - they'll never tell you the distance, they'll just keep telling you to keep driving on - and will be immediately followed by some kind of heinous physical challenge when you arrive at your destination. Imagine ruck-running for an hour or two or three with 55lbs on your back, and when you get to where you're going, the cadre begin a "thrash session": drop and do twenty-five pushups at the four count. Now on your backs and do flutterkicks, twenty-five at the four count. Right, now roll over and do pushups; twenty-five at the four count. And it goes on, and on and on for at least forty minutes. Either that, or they make you haul logs around or some other sadistic medieval technique designed to defeat your spirit and crush your soul. OK, take a break, get cleaned up, grab some chow. In six hours we'll do it all over again - and nobody tells you how far you're going to have to march or what's waiting for you on the other end.

If you can hang in there and survive this kind of punishment, you're Special Forces material.

Now just to show you I put my money where my mouth is - literally - this is what my workday entailed, starting out yesterday morning at zero dark thirty: six mile ruck/run with 20+ lbs body armor, plus 35+ lbs rucksack for 55 lbs total. Going up those hills in that super cooled air, it really hurt the heart & lungs, I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack.

We followed that creek 6 miles ... went up & down hills ... heart attack terrain... the creek is frozen solid in most places .... except where we had to cross it - in those places it was wet and deep enough to saturate our boots. And of course we practically ran the whole way, because that is our signature move - Rucksack Death Marches from Hell.

The body armor added a dimension of suckage to it that is simply ... indescribable ... The damn body armor constricts the chest so you can't draw a full breath, which makes huffing & puffing up those hills even harder still. Between that and the rucksack straps pulling your shoulders back, its like being crucified with a 55 lb monkey on your back while having a heart attack and marching on wet frozen stumps of meat over uneven terrain in the dark so cold you can't feel your face ... all at the same time ... for 3+ hours ...

Why do I do it? I do it because I gotta do it, gotta embrace the suck. I do it because what I learned after I retired from active duty is that "Special Forces is Forever" is more than a recruiting slogan. Like they told me three decades ago at Camp Mackall: "You think it's over? You think its over? . . .

Thursday, August 17, 2017

This tearing down of Confederate statues is not about "fighting fascism" or fighting oppression of any kind - it is anti-Americanism, plain and simple, and it is utterly disgraceful . . . SL

Confederate soldiers, sailors and marines that fought in the Civil War were made US veterans by an act of Congress in 1957. US Public Law 85-425 sec 410 5/23/1958. This made all Confederate military veterans equal to United States veterans. Additionally under US Public Law 810 - approved by the 17th Congress on February 26 1929: The War Department was directed to erect headstones and recognize Confederate grave sites as US war grave sites.

In other words, when you remove or deface a Confederate statue, monument or headstone, you are removing or defacing the statue, monument or headstone of a United States Veteran. Unlike burning or otherwise dishonoring the United States flag, this behavior is illegal.

When the Confederate Battle Flag is depicted on such memorials, it is fitting and proper as their distinctive unit insignia. When the Confederate Battle Flag is displayed by Klansmen or neo-Nazis, it is not appropriate and does indeed represent oppression.

The statue that was torn down in Durham North Carolina was a memorial to Confederate soldiers who perished in the Civil War. Such monuments exist all over the South, in front of state houses and in cemetaries. They are no more a glorification of the Confederacy than the monument on the right (in memory of Wehrmacht soldiers, Bad Constatt, Germany) is a glorification to the criminal Nazi government of the Third Reich.

Erasing history is what terrorists and revolutionaries do. These are memorials to those soldiers who gave their lives defending their homeland. Less than 1% of Confederate soldiers were slave owners, so how can anyone claim the struggle was for slavery? A Union soldier once asked a Confederate soldier, "Rebel, why do you fight us?" to which the Confederate replied, "Because you're here, Yankee."

This call to tear down statues is shameful and un-American, and anybody engaging in or encouraging this disgraceful behavior is actively going against the history of the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Armed neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville

This is absolutely disgraceful - but can somebody show me where Trump is endorsing this? I seem to recall Obama inviting the BLM scum to the Whitehouse and shaking their hands - the same people who were marching in the streets chanting "Pigs in blankets, fry 'em like bacon!" - the same people responsible for the assassination of police officers across our nation.

If the mayor of Charlottesville had a hair on his ass he could have shut this thing down before it started, in the name of public safety. At the very least, he should have separated the two groups, not allow them within 500 meters of each other. It wouldn't have taken overwhelming manpower - I once stood down a street riot in Cote d'Ivoire with less than 12 men - and Charlottesville cops had the State Troopers to back them up. Barricades should have been put up all over the place, no cars should have been allowed anywhere near the demonstration. Instead the cops were told to stand down - WTF?

Black Panthers demonstrating at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, 2 May 1967

For the record, the contemporary interpretation of the 2d Amendment and the modern day open carry phenomenon and the brandishing of firearms at political rallies was started by the Black Panthers - another leftist group endorsed by the Obama Administration, BTW.

Antifa, Black Lives Matter and Occupy are not home grown, grassroots movements. These are revolutionary anarchistic movements sponsored by the America-hating billionaire George Soros. His intent is to change America, to break us down from our position as the world's lone Superpower, and to re-establish the United States as a collectivist system, with all economic activity directed by the federal government via central planning. Those leftists rioting in Charlottesville were professional agitators bused in by Soros, bought and paid for by Soros.

Two months ago the agenda of the Trump administration was tax reform, and to repeal and replace Obamacare. Guess what's not on the agenda at this time? Tax reform, and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

We are being played people - what we saw happen in Charlottesville is exactly what they wanted us to see.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Everyone knows someone who is or may be going to battle, whether physical or spiritual. Soldiers use Psalm 91 as a source of inspiration, and to pray for safety and protection in battle. This is appropriate for me now . . . S.L.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

You have to fully understand the phenomenon of what was Hays Street, downtown Fayettteville, and what it meant to be a young paratrooper there in the 1970's and early 80's . . . S.L.

By 1986 the only bar left on Hays Street was the Seven Dwarfs - moved across the street from its original location (next to Rick's) to adjacent to the Fayetteville Observer's print room, very close to where the Airborne & Special Operations Museum now stands. Rick's burned down in '84 - some say arson, so the owner could realize some kind of worth on the property as the City of Fayetteville continued its pressure to "sanitize" Hays Street. Seven Dwarfs was a Korean-owned establishment but there were several round-eye girls dancing there, some of them not bad looking, either.

It was at the Seven Dwarfs where I had the adventure of my life. I was a squad leader in the 2/504 P.I.R. and it came to the attention of my platoon sergeant that one of my troops was a virgin. Every Monday morning at 0900 formation he'd look at me and say "Has Private So-&-So's nuts dropped yet?" and I'd have to say (somewhat ashamedly) "No, Sergeant. Private So-&-So's nuts haven't dropped yet," and the rest of the platoon would snicker and laugh.

We were the laughingstock of the company, and the honor of the squad was at stake. The situation was getting out of hand. So the seasoned paratroopers in the squad got together and we decided to do something about it. Saturday night we went down to Hays Street to visit the last holdout on the old "Strip" - the notorious Seven Dwarfs.

Things were going along fine. The place was full of these Air Force guys, we were the only paratroopers in there. After a few beers, Private So-&-So was in a deep conversation with this remarkably good-looking cougar in her 40s wearing the skimpiest string bikini you could possibly imagine. She had her elbow up on the bar, holding her chin in her hand and totally engrossed in whatever the hell it was So-&-So was telling here, like he was The Most Interesting Man in the World.

A couple beers later I looked over and Private So-&-So and The Cougar were locked into a full-on open-mouthed, French tongue-kiss. I felt kind of proud, and I nudged my buddy next to me, "hey, check out So-&-So." When I looked back, I noticed one of my other guys rolling on the floor fighting for his life, exchanging punches with one of the Air Force Guys. That was it - COMBAT. The squad got on line and we waded into the Air Force guys.

I'd cleared out a few saloons before that - and a few since - and it was like any other bar fight: a glorious turbulence of exquisite violence. But we were operating like a team, and it became like industrial-line warfare. We'd grab one of the Air Force guys and hand him down the line, everybody nailing the poor bastard with a couple of good punches. We were DESTROYING the enemy, which is what paratroopers do. We know nothing else.

At one point I became aware that one of the Korean mama-sans who ran the joint was coming up to us and spraying mace in our faces. We were used to CS of course, so this mace shit was a joke - we just shook it off and drove on with our mission, which was destroying the Air Force guys. The Air Force guys, on the other hand, were freaking out from the mace and they were scattering in all directions.

The rhythm of the battle changed, and I found myself being grabbed by the front of my shirt and thrown up against the wall by this huge Samoan dude. Like a total dumbass I said, "You want to try that again?" SURE! - and WHAM - I was up against the wall again. Then the Samoan had me by the lapels again and was up in my face, talking to me in a loud voice.

"LISSEN TO ME!" he said. A badge came out. "I'M CID!!! YOU NEED TO GET YOUR GUYS AND GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!"

Light went on my head. I signaled my guys and we got the hell out of there. Had to extricate Private So-&-So from Miss Cougar the String Bikini Bandit. Then we were out in the street, and we could see four cop cars lining up in front of the place, blue lights flashing, another car rolling up, and coming around the corner a sixth cop car. They were already hauling the hapless Air Force guys out of there in handcuffs.

Not my guys - we were already out on the street, playing it cool, with the scent of mace wafting about us. The big Samoan CID guy came up to us and said, "Lissen guys, I like the 82d! I used to be 82d! You need to get your asses out of here! And you see that guy over there?" He pointed to this nondescript guy shuffling up the street in our direction. "Don't fuck with him! He's a cop!"

We made our way back to the barracks. I don't know what anybody did on Sunday, but Monday morning PT formation we were all there, looking more or less worse for wear and tear after our misadventure Saturday night. Platoon Sergeant says, "Linnane! Has Private So-&-So's nuts dropped yet?"

This time I just thought of how we'd dealt death & destruction, then did a successful E&E out of there, and to me that counted as success not failure, so this time I held my chin up and spoke a bit louder when I reported, "No, Sergeant, his nuts haven't dropped yet."

This time nobody snickered - word about the Battle of the Seven Dwarfs had gotten around the platoon, apparently, and the honor of the squad was firmly established. We were obviously a force to be reckoned with.

The next weekend the guys took Private So-and-So out to the Velvet Touch in Spring Lake and got him squared away. I went by myself back down to the Seven Dwarfs - return to the scene of the crime - looked up that hot 40-something cougar in the string bikini and got myself squared away - but that's a story for another time.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

New research shows that ancient humans had sex with non-human species.

According to a study conducted by Omer Gokcumen, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, ancient humans had intercourse with a "ghost species" of "proto-human". Gokcumen explains that humans are only one member of a broader species named "hominins". The research found that humans had sex with other members of the hominins group.

I'm not sure if the X-Files ever investigated this theory, but the Bible certainly contains some mysterious clues. Consider, Genesis 6:1-4 -

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Could Genesis 6:1-4 be talking about aliens? The word Nephilim literally means "the fallen". So that could mean they "fell" or landed from outer space, right? Maybe that's why they lived so long, were mighty, and well-known.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Reminiscing here . . . an earlier time, a simpler time, before the whole world went insane and everything went to shit . . . SL

"So, what kind of training did you do?"

"Train training"

"Yes, we train - train all the time, but what kind of training did you do?"

"Training on trains!"

"Yes, if its not raining we're not training, and it rains while you train. What I'm asking is what did you DO while you were training?"

"Trains training! We did trains training! We got on the trains, and we went on down the line!"

"OK - now we're getting somewhere. You did L.I.N.E.S. training, in the rain! That's good training!"

< SIGH > . . . you just can't tell some people . . .

No animals were harmed during the production of this blogpost, and please be aware that the train is moving at about 50 mph during all of the above "action shots" . . . "These are trained professionals . . . do NOT try this at home!!!"

This post is dedicated to Karate Karl, the best damn Sergeant-Major who ever served in United States Army Special Forces . . .STORMBRINGER SENDS